The Weight Of Us
by Her Ghost Eyes
Summary: "I was going to be so...so great." She hasn't told anyone, but Hermione Granger is dying.


**I've been itching to write this for ages. Feedback is appreciated more than you could know. **

**Enjoy. Well, hopefully.**

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><p><strong>The Weight Of Us<br>**

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><p><em>The history books forgot about us<br>And the bible didn't mention us  
>You are my sweetest downfall<br>I loved you first  
>I loved you first<em>

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><p>She hasn't told anyone, but Hermione Granger is dying.<p>

She knows it when she wakes up, met with a pale while ceiling that winks at her cruelly. She knows it as she brushes the thick knots out of her hair and stares into the mirror, wincing at her pallid, spotted face. The freckles on her nose have faded into her complexion, and the sickness is wearing away at her body. She can feel it.

She knows it when she steps outside her house, through the magical barrier that protects her house, admiring the flowers that have sprung into bloom and the impossibly green shade of the grass. Now that she knows her end, everything is a beginning.

The sky is clouding over, and she wonders if it's reflecting her mood. Black, dull, empty; anticipating. She knows that soon she won't be able to keep up the façade; her bones will grow weak, her skin tone duller, and she won't be able to propel herself from the tangled web of lies quick enough.

Ginny will be furious, she knows. She might hex somebody, or throw things. Harry will try to fix things. Change them. And then he'll break something when he realises it's all in vain; a vase, perhaps. Ron will deny it, say that she's lying or that the tests were wrong and that this would _not _happen to Hermione, not ever.

Hermione has their reactions figured out, right to the very last detail. There will be no surprises.

So, when a soft voice teases, "Taking a morning stroll, Granger?" she very nearly has a heart attack. She grips her heart, spinning around to stare at the stranger.

Or maybe he's not so much a stranger. He still has the same, undeniable, Malfoy looks. He still has that aloof smirk on his face, still has that look in his eyes that appears to know more about you than you do.

Maybe _she's _the stranger, now.

"Draco." She nods.

"You look like shit," he tells her with raised eyebrows. She flinches. She thought she had made herself look reasonable today. Concealer covering the shadows under her eyes. A dab of blush to make it look like she wasn't just a pallid, lifeless figure.

"Thank you, ever shining light of my life," she shoots back at him sardonically, but there's no fire in her words. Why go picking fights?

She's dying.

Hermione Granger is dying.

And dying means forgiveness. People will need to forgive her and she will need to forgive them, before she goes. She knows this.

Forgiveness.

"Hey, Granger. We're neighbours. I thought you'd at least be civil."

"Why should I?"

He smiles at her, reaches out a hand. She frowns at it as if he's just offered her a bomb. He snatches it back briskly. "Because I have no reason to lie."

_Neither do I, _she wants to say.

_Neither do I. _

"When are you going to tell them, Hermione?" Draco asks her, frowning. His eyes hold a tint of something, something she's never seen before – sadness, maybe. But that's preposterous. Draco Malfoy is never _sad. _He's many things: sadistic, sarcastic, ironic, idiotic. But he's not sad.

She pretends to be innocent. "Tell them what?" she asks, eyes wide with mocking surprise.

He grimaces at her. "About the cancer." The words are gritted out. His eyes are unusually bright, like he's holding back emotion and bundling it up inside him.

She smiles patronizingly at him. "You mean that I'm dying?"

She watches the words bite into him. His face darkens, and his eyes retain that shiny look.

"Yes."

"Never," she replies, and continues to walk.

ooo

Every day, the end gets closer.

Sometimes, she wishes it would just hurry up already.

He visits her, one morning, when she calls in sick at work and doesn't emerge from her house all day. He finds her collapsed on the bathroom floor, her head in her hands, tears leaking through her fingers.

"Oh, Hermione," he whispers, and pulls her to him.

"I was going to be so…so _great!_" she cries, and he's never seen her like this before. She's always taken dying in her stride. Now, she looks frightened. Horrified. Sad. Broken. "The brightest witch of my age. I was going to finish my Auror training and fight evil, like the heroines in the stories." She half-expects him to laugh at her, but instead, he just sighs.

"I was going to be so – so great," she whispers again, and fresh tears make their way down her cheeks.

He looks down at her, his eyes glistening, and a teardrop slips down his cheek. "You can't die," he whispers, his voice suddenly rough. "You _can't._"

She's surprised, because he's the only one who has ever accepted her death. Seeing Draco hurt makes _her _hurt. Things that faze Draco Malfoy are few and far between.

The two grip each other and cry. Outside, rain begins to emerge from the dwelling clouds, and the sky cries with them.

ooo

"What's wrong with her, Malfoy? She looks…lifeless."

"She's dying."

Abrupt, short words.

"This is not something to fucking _joke _about, you bastard! We need to see the doctor! What if there's something seriously wrong with her?"

Scuffling. And then, the rustles of paper. "She wanted me to give these to you...if, if she couldn't tell you herself."

Silence. Silence for so long that she begins to wonder if she's still here at all.

And then a moan of grief. A screech. Smashing.

Ginny's cries fill the room, accompanied by Harry's arguing. Ron is saying 'no, no, no, no'.

She smiles internally, because she was right.

"Why didn't she tell us?" Harry demands.

Draco's voice is quiet. "Maybe she didn't want everybody to act like she was being towed away to her own funeral."

"But she told _you_?"

Silence. Long, unabating silence.

Finally, it is broken.

"Yes."

Nothing more needs to be said.

ooo

"She's growing weaker."

Hermione can feel the cool wrap around her like a blanket. It's safe. Warm. Secure. His hand snakes into hers, and she squeezes back so gently that he shouldn't even feel it, but she knows he will.

"I don't want her to die." Ginny's voice is broken.

"Neither do any of us, Gin." Harry's voice is quiet.

They don't want to leave, she knows, not even for five minutes, but in the end, they have to grab something to eat. Draco stays, and she sighs through the blackness, trying to get her lips to form the words.

_I…lo…_

_love…._

_I love…_

"I love you," she hears somebody whisper, and with some subdued surprise, realises it's her.

He pulls her close to him. "I love you more," he whispers back, as if it's the biggest secret in the world. "I'll miss you," he adds quietly.

She feels her lips turn up in a small, sad smile.

"I'll miss you more."

ooo

"Her pulse is dying."

Harry.

"Hermione, it's okay. I love you. You can let go now. You can go."

Draco.

She is thankful for these words. Permission to die. If she were herself, she may have laughed at the thought.

But she isn't.

She feels herself pull away from her body.

His arms wrap around her, and his lips kiss her cheek.

Times goes on, and nobody says anything. The clock ticks painfully. The breathing of their best friend slows.

The three don't utter a word. They merely watch as a broken man clutches the girl he loves as she dies, leaving him behind.


End file.
